Christmas Spirits
by King in Yellow
Summary: A holographic image of her partner warns Kim she will be visited by the three ghosts of Christmas to help her regain the joy of Christmas. Which might be sweet, except that Kim never lost her joy for the holiday, just the day itself. Best Enemies Universe


Boilerplate Disclaimer: The various characters from the Kim Possible series are all owned by Disney. Any and all registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.

NoDrogs created Kasy and Sheki, whose origin was modified in my stories.

**Christmas Spirits**

Global Justice, as one might expect from the name, is concerned with the world and needs someone authorized to make command level decisions at headquarters twenty-four seven. Elizabeth Director, her immediate assistant, and the five department heads usually handled the duty in rotation. In recognition of their abilities Kim Possible and Will Du were periodically allowed a command shift. It was a great honor. It was an awesome responsibility. It was a pain in the rear.

Kim or Will were only asked to fill in on shifts which were expected to be deadly quiet, as the result of an unexpected illness, or a holiday when the senior administrators all wanted the day off.

Christmas morning, and Kim sat at the command desk feeling bored and resentful. GJ had six mission teams in the field, and she had read the reports from each of the team commanders three times. She would have preferred a field mission to sitting at headquarters feeling useless. It was expected to be a slow day and the headquarters' staff was reduced to a skeleton crew – most of them Muslims, or Hindus, or Jews who had no objection to working on December twenty-fifth. Kim walked through headquarters for a second time and caught herself before she yelled at a couple translators busy with solitaire games on their computers. Instead she managed to ask, "Nothing to do?"

"Nope. Real quiet at the moment," one answered.

"Whole lot better than someone shooting at someone else," the second added.

Kim had to agree, and decided there was no point in telling them to look busy. She wondered briefly if she should wish them Merry Christmas, but decided against it in case they weren't Christian and returned to her office, the resentful now outweighing the bored as she contemplated three more hours and the long trip home. This had to be the most miserable Christmas she could remember. She had missed most of last night's party. She had missed the excitement of the twins and Jane waking up early on Christmas morning and running downstairs. And, while she would have never imagined such a thing in high school, she missed Bonnie being there as much as the fantastic breakfast Ron was sure to have prepared while she had been busy monitoring nothing. Bonnie had been especially busy this last year and she and Ron had not made it back to Middleton with their two children as often as Kim would have liked. Kim stared out the window at the parking lot and felt sorry for herself.

Her mood brightened slightly when she heard Shego's ring tone from her bag. "Hello."

"Hit speaker and put the phone down on the desk, face up."

"What?"

"Just do it, Princess. Want to test something Joss did."

Kim frowned. She'd been given the device a week earlier, but had not been told it was an experimental model. Still, she followed directions.

"On the desk?" Shego's voice asked.

"Yes. What is–"

Suddenly the air over the phone shimmered and a hologram materialized, an image apparently of Shego… except that the green woman was wrapped in chains, "Help me, Obi Wan," Shego pleaded, "you're our only hope… Oh, my bad. Wrong movie."

"What the–"

"Ebenzer Possible. I am the ghost of your partner, Shego Marley." Kim giggled slightly. "I have come to warn you, come over to the dark side with me."

"You switched movies again."

"Sorry. Where was I?"

"You were warning me against following in your evil footsteps."

"Oh yeah, that too. Anyway, because you've lost the joy of Christmas and turned into such a wretched old miser–"

"No I haven't!"

"–you will be sent three ghosts to help you regain your joy."

"Shego! I haven't–"

"And now, for your viewing pleasure, I present the Ghost of Christmas Past."

The Shego hologram disappeared and another hologram shimmered into view. This hologram was someone covered with an old, white sheet with two eyeholes cut into it. "Why do you get the fancy costume?" James Possible's voice could be heard complaining from beneath the sheet.

"Be grateful," Shego's voice came from off camera. "These chains are a pain. Did you know your daughter was kinky?"

"Don't believe her, Dad," Kim screamed at the phone.

"Kimmie-cub, this was always your favorite holiday. Shego suggested I play some of the video recordings from when you were a little girl… Here, this is the first Christmas I have a tape from. You were–"

"Hold on a minutes," Wade could be heard instructing the Ghost of Christmas Past, "I need to cut the signal from you and send the video."

The image of the father in the sheet vanished and a small rectangular panel like a television screen coalesced over the phone, then James Possible picked up his narration.

Kim sighed, and said nothing as her father enthusiastically narrated the old videos. She knew that Shego, Wade, and her Dad were trying to make her feel better, but they were only making her feel worse by reminding her of what she had missed today. Shego had finally grown comfortable enough about being Jewish that Kim's need to celebrate Christmas no longer bothered her.

"Besides," the green woman sniffed, "I'm not even sure you can call it a religious holiday anymore. I think the retail industry and Hallmark hijacked it for themselves." But in a quiet moment Shego had confessed how important the day had been to her when she was a child, and how much the chance to be with family still meant. And that had made the last several Christmas mornings all the sweeter for Kim, and made her feel all the worse for having to work today.

Her father was only up to when Kim was thirteen when her replacement arrived at the command office.

"Sorry, Oh Ghost of Christmas Past," Kim apologized to her father, "but looks like there's no time for the next two ghosts. I'm on my way back to Middleton."

Given how little had happened Kim's briefing went quickly and she was soon on her way back to Middleton. She looked at the clock for the fiftieth time and hoped Ron kept a plate of food warm for her.

* * *

Except for the porch light the huge house seemed remarkably dark as Kim pulled into the garage. "Great," she muttered. "I'll bet Ron and Bonnie are over with his folks and Shego and the girls are probably over with Mom and Dad." They probably forgot to even leave her a plate of food.

As Kim walked up to the house she noticed a good-sized box, wrapped like a Christmas package, on the porch. When she got closer she noticed a label on the box which simply read, "Kim." As she stooped over to look at it more closely the top of box burst open as her youngest daughter sprang up, dressed in a green and red dress with a red Santa hat on her head, "I am the ghost of Christmas Present," the little red head shouted. Seeing Kim's startled look the child apologized in a stage whisper, "Don't be afraid, Mommy. I'm not really a ghost."

"I know that," Kim assured her as she helped Jane out of the box. "But you make a wonderful Christmas present. Where are Eemah and the twins?"

"They're in the house."

"What are they doing?"

"I don't know. I was out here in the box."

Kim and the small girl opened the door and walked into the dark entryway.

"How long were you out in the box?"

"Just a few minutes. We saw you coming."

"How did–"

Suddenly the lights on the huge Christmas tree, left from the Solstice party, went on, and shouts of "Merry Christmas," came at Kim from all angles. Throughout the downstairs lights blazed on, and even more friends pressed around her than had been at her home the previous night.

"Has the party been going on since I left?" Kim asked her Mom.

"No, Dear. Last night's party ended when you left us."

"It's not a Christmas party without you, KP," Ron told her. "So Shego said we'd put Christmas on hold for twenty-four hours at the house and let the ghosts of Christmas work their magic on you."

"She tried to draft me for Tiny Tim," Kim's brother Tim grumbled. "I don't do Tiny Tim."

"And you shouldn't," his wife Erin assured him. "You aren't tiny. You're perfectly adequate." Everyone within hearing range except Tim laughed.

"And it's no fair," Jane protested. "Junior got to open his presents and get his stocking this morning. And Aunt Bonnie says we have to wait for tomorrow."

"Yeah, Squirt, but this way Mommy is here with us. Isn't she worth waiting for?" Shego reminded her daughter.

"I guess," the little redhead admitted.

Kim spotted Sheki and Kasy ignoring other guests and trying to monopolize Jason. Kim wondered if she should try and break it up. The Mankeys had been with his parents the night before, and spent the morning with Tara's folk, and were now at the Christmas evening party at Kim's.

Shego caught Kim looking in the direction of the twins and shook her head 'no' as a warning for Kim not to interfere. "Oh, Kasy offered to be Kasy Cratchit and say how unfair her mothers were – but didn't Bob just put up with old Scrooge?"

"Do you have any idea how long it's been since I actually read that thing?"

Shego left to issue a subtle threat to the twins that they needed to mingle more.

Kim worked her way through the guests, talking briefly or at length with them and thanking everyone for coming. She gave Bonnie a hug and asked Ron what he planned for breakfast in the morning.

"I wish Monique and Will could have been here," Bonnie sighed. "If they were with his folks this year will they be here next year?"

"I hope he gets stuck with Christmas duty next year," Kim replied.

Jim and Zita seemed more comfortable appearing together in public as a couple. Kim almost asked if they were going to get married, since living together seemed to be working out so well for them, but bit her tongue and left the third degree to her mother. Jim was more likely to cave in to pressure from Anne than his older sister.

Wade seemed nervous. "We haven't seen Junior in ten minutes," Joss explained.

"You know he's with Jane and Aaron," Kim told Wade.

"And that should give me peace of mind because?"

Kim was talking with the Crandalls when Shego came over and handed her a large glass of something frothy. Kim took a sip and gave the green woman a look of disgust, "How much alcohol is in this eggnog?"

"Like it? I call it the Spirits of Christmas yet to come."

"I don't like it. I… Are you trying to get me snockered and take advantage of me?"

Shego attempted to look innocent, a skill she had never mastered. "Would I do that? Just because I said the Spirits of Christmas yet to_ come_?"

Kim sighed, and leaned over to whisper in the older woman's ear, "You don't have to get me drunk to get me into bed, you know. And I plan to show you just how much this means to me."

Shego smiled and gave Kim a quick kiss. _"God bless us, every one."_

–The End–


End file.
